January 12, 2006 -

Ottawa, Canada -- This month is Mozart’s 250th birthday, and the National Arts Centre Orchestra is celebrating the precocious musical genius with an all-Mozart evening on Wednesday, January 18 and Thursday, January 19 at 20:00 in the NAC’s Southam Hall. Conductor/violinist Jaime Laredo will be featured as soloist in both Mozart’s Adagio for Violin and Orchestra and Rondo for Violin and Orchestra. Juno Award-winning NAC Orchestra principal bassoon Christopher Millard will step forward as soloist in Mozart’s Bassoon Concerto. Laredo will also lead the Orchestra in Mozart’s “Linz” Symphony No. 36 in these Mark Motors Audi Signature Series concerts. As previously announced* Jaime Laredo is replacing Music Director Pinchas Zukerman for these concerts.

There will be free pre-concert talks in French given in the Salon at 19:00 both evenings by Le Droit music critic Jean-Jacques van Vlasselaer entitled “Pourquoi Mozart est-il Mozart?”

There will also be free talks about Mozart given in English in the Salon during the intermission by leading Austrian musicologists from Graz, Vienna, and the Mozarteum in Salzburg, These Mozart experts are in Ottawa for an international symposium on the composer presented by Carleton University, the NAC, the Austrian Cultural Forum and Velvet Productions.

Mozart was dubbed “the prince of concerto writers” by musicologist A. Hyatt King, and the first half of the concerts on January 18 and 19 shows off his skills at composing for orchestra and soloist. While in the service of the Archbishop of Salzburg, he wrote the Adagio in E for the orchestra’s new concertmaster as a substitute movement for one of his violin concertos. Five years later he wrote the Rondo in C for the same violinist after following the Archbishop and concertmaster to Vienna. The Bassoon Concerto, one of Mozart’s earliest concertos, exploits the full range of the instrument as well as its ability to handle with ease wide leaps, fast scales and extended passages of very short notes.  The bassoon's lovely singing quality is also very much in evidence.

The “Linz” Symphony was famously written in only four days when Mozart and his wife stopped by the Austrian city of Linz to visit a friend of the family and were greeted with great hospitality. He wrote to his father: “On Tuesday, November 4, I shall give a concert in the theatre here, and as I don’t have a single symphony with me, I am writing a new one at breakneck speed.” Good to his word, the symphony was miraculously completed in time for the performance.

Jaime Laredo, in his more than forty years before the public, has excelled in the multiple roles of soloist, conductor, recitalist and chamber musician. Since his stunning orchestral debut at the age of eleven with the San Francisco Symphony, he has won the admiration and respect of audiences, critics and fellow musicians with his passionate and polished performances. This season, as he has for over twenty-five years, Mr. Laredo will interweave solo and conducting dates with the dense chamber music schedule of the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, both in North America and abroad. Jaime Laredo has recorded close to one hundred CDs. He has received the Deutsche Schallplatten Prize and a Grammy Award, and received seven Grammy nominations. He won first prize in the Queen Elizabeth Competition in Brussels, becoming the youngest winner in the history of this prestigious competition.

Christopher Millard, described by the peer journal The Double Reed as “one of the great bassoonists of the 20th century,” joined the National Arts Centre Orchestra as principal bassoon at the beginning of the 2004-2005 season after 28 years as principal bassoon for the Vancouver Symphony and the CBC Radio Orchestra. He has received wide praise for his four solo recordings which include a disc in the prestigious “OrchestraPro” series for Summit Records and a CBC records disc of Italian concerti with Mario Bernardi and the CBC Radio Orchestra. His most recent recordings, both on CBC records, include a new Schubert Octet and the Hétu Bassoon Concerto, the latter of which won a 2004 Juno Award.

Tickets for these Mark Motors Audi Signature Series concerts on January 18 and 19 are on sale now at $27.00, $47.50, $58.00 and $60.00, with box seats at $79.00 (GST and Facility Fee included) at the NAC Box Office (Monday to Saturday from 10:00 to 21:00), and through Ticketmaster (with surcharges) at 613-755-1111.  Ticketmaster may also be accessed through the NAC’s web-site at www.nac-cna.ca. 

Groups of 10 and more save 15% to 20% off the regular price of tickets to NAC Music, Theatre and Dance performances.  To reserve your seats call 947-7000 ext. 384 or email grp@nac-cna.ca.  Half-price tickets for students in all sections of the hall are on sale in person at the NAC Box Office upon presentation of a valid student ID card.

*The National Arts Centre announced on December 16 that Pinchas Zukerman is taking a five-and-a-half month sabbatical from the Orchestra. Replacement conductors will be announced for the five sets of NAC Orchestra concerts that Maestro Zukerman was scheduled to conduct in this period. Conductor/violinist Jaime Laredo is the first of these.

- 30 -

For more information please contact:
Jane Morris, Communications Officer,
National Arts Centre Orchestra
(613) 947-7000, ext. 335
jmorris@nac-cna.ca